On Sat, 12 Aug 2000, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote about, RE: What to
backup?:
> First, a belated thanks to Richard for his reply.
>
> And, a follow-up question (or two): Since /var contains some runtime
> information, is it safe to restore it to a new system? In particular
> /var/run looks as though it contains current running PID information. Would
> the old PID's in /var/run cause a problem on a newly restored system? My
> main interest in /var is the log files. Besides /var/log is there anything
> in /var that might be essential to restoring the system to its former state?
Putting old stale PID lock files on a newly installed system is not a good
idea, it will stop many programs from starting as the program itself may
and possbly will refuse to start if it see's a PID file.
/var vary's from distro to distro, some like slackware have apache installed
in /var/lib/, other local programs may even be in or in some way related to
files or directorys found in /var/lib/. dosemu, elm, apache and many
others.
/var/spool
contains mail folders for all of the systems users.
/var/ax25 (if applicable) is used by the AX25 system for Radio Hams and
contains important information for the running thereof.
Directory's not to be backup would be a better way to explain.
/var/state
/var/info
/var/man
/var/games
All of the above (AFAIK) get created by a new install and have no user or
system value to a new system.
Another hint, could be simply backup everything and be selective about what
is reinstalled, dont simply untar the old archive over the new system, untar
into a tmp directory and only copy by hand what is needed to solve a
particular problem.
An example of simply untarring ALL saved archives onto a new system "could"
place you back where you started as one or another configuration file might
just be the cause of the problem which made you re-install in the first
place.
>
> Thanks again,
> Steve Barrett
--
Regards Richard
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
http://people.zeelandnet.nl/pa3gcu/
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